


do you feel it too?

by itsthebat



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Grieving, Heavy Angst, It has a happy ending I swear, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Isolation, Yearning, al and riza are there too for a little bit, but it takes a while to get there, five years after the promised day, it says ed/ling but it's mostly an ed character study tbh, self-deprecation, theres an 'oh' moment!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25573582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsthebat/pseuds/itsthebat
Summary: Houses can be rebuilt, and beds can be remade, and nightmares wear off; they didn’t lose limbs, or friends, or family. They didn’t mourn a lost cause, and they don’t grieve like Ed does. He knows he’s not the only person in pain in the world, but he travels and he sees people going on about their lives, enjoying whatever they have, and it occurs to him that maybe he’s the only person not over it.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Ling Yao
Comments: 8
Kudos: 72





	do you feel it too?

**Author's Note:**

> It's been soooo long since I watched fmab for the last time I even had to look up some of the characters' names because I didn't remember but here we are! I wrote another Edling fic, a year later :) Ed deals with heavy PTSD here, so beware if that's not your cup of tea. Otherwise, enjoy!

Sometimes he feels like he’s going to fucking _explode_.

It’s not a new feeling: it’s how Ed felt when he and Alphonse almost brought their mother back to life but screwed up; when he had to give up an arm in order to save his little brother; when he stood before his burning house. A feeling burrowed so deep inside his body that he wouldn’t even know where to begin to describe it.

He’d thought the _feeling_ was gone—now that everything is nice and how it’s supposed to be; now that he is as normal as any other person. He’d believed, stupidly, that his life would be easier once every problem was solved. But he couldn’t have been more _wrong_.

It’s in the little things, mostly. Like when he sees a lizard and he’s reminded of Hughes death and his funeral and the family he left behind, or when he hears a loud noise and recoils at the sound, a thousand images of gunshot wounds appearing in his mind a mile a second, like a very bad movie.

Sometimes it’s as simple as looking at his naked body—one of his arms covered in scars and dents and little wounds that never healed well, the other untouched and soft as a baby’s skin. The bruises in his legs and around his one shoulder; the scars over his skin, pink and rosy and so ugly there are times that Ed can’t help but feel nauseous at their sight.

And always there is that _feeling_ , too common but too unwanted at the same time. It’s like a splinter inside your skin—it doesn’t hurt too much but it’s unpleasant, only on a much bigger scale. It’s a feeling too big for his body even now that he’s taller, too old to confront, far too gone at this point to tell anyone about it.

Ed’s kind of become accustomed to its presence. Sometimes I’s easier to deal with; sometimes not so much. More than once, he’s had to postpone meetings or cancel them altogether, and all because of this _feeling_ he doesn’t know what to call, this _feeling_ that keeps him in bed and doesn’t let him go.

He’s wondered many times, does Alphonse feel the same? He hasn’t asked his brother because he doesn’t think it’d make him any right, but when he’s alone at night in a foreign city, in a foreign home and he can’t get any sleep, Ed gives the question all his mind, thinks hard about it as he’s never thought about anything else before.

But he comes to the same conclusion every time: if Alphonse feels the same feeling as Ed, he’s dealing with it far better than Ed is. He’s got Winry and he’s got a house and he’s got a life—Ed has only his body to go by, and sometimes even that fails him. And Ed knows: he should be happy for his brother. But jealousy is a virus, and Ed has got a chronic illness.

And he’s not right—he’s not about to deny that, not to himself—because there are times when he’s fully awake in the middle of the night, and he’s in bed and he’s smoking a cigarette because that’s the only thing that helps, and he’s not right because he finds himself wishing he were back. Back where there was blood and back where Alphonse wasn’t Alphonse and back where it was messy, because at least it was familiar.

He misses the way he spoke—ruthless and without thinking, all curse words and insults and not caring about other people’s feelings. He misses the way he threw punches—quick and raw, without thinking about the bruises or broken bones until he was done. He misses travelling the world accompanied; he misses the people he lost on the way.

He misses the people not lost, yet not kept. There’s this thing Ed does when he’s in a new town and the _feeling_ doesn’t allow him out of bed for hours—he writes. He writes about the place he’s in, about the merchants he found on the way and about… not his feelings, in general, but close. Ed writes to no one in particular, though he knows who his words are meant to.

Ed’s twenty years, and he has sent only three letters in his life. One: to his father, when he was little and still had the childish hope that one day he’d come back. Two: to Alphonse and Winry, when Ed got locked in a city because there was a chickenpox outbreak and he didn’t want to risk catching it, to tell them he wouldn’t come to spend the following weekend at their house in Resembool. Three: to the Emperor of Xing, a month ago after getting chickenpox and making a bad decision.

The worst thing is: he might have written the letter in a fevered, semi-hallucination state, but Ed remembers _exactly_ what he wrote.

It was not his brightest moment, he thinks now, laying sideways in his bed at the inn. But as he’s come to realize, the _feeling_ grows bigger and bigger the sicker he is—at first it was only an echo inside his body, something he’d grown used to, but after a few hours it was so big Ed thought he’d never come out of it alive.

So he wrote: he yanked a few pages out of the diary he usually wrote into, and began scribbling his thoughts. In these pages, Ed bared his every last thought, every little thing he was too afraid to say out loud, and everything he felt but was too afraid to ask about. He wrote about the _feeling_ : how it’d begin small but made itself huge in no time at all; how he sometimes couldn’t even breathe, couldn’t make himself eat or drink or move; how Ed sometimes thought it’d be his end.

He wrote it all down, put it in an envelope and sent it to Ling, of all people, because it’s been five years since Ed saw him for the last time but still he loves him.

It’s a big word: _love_. Ed thinks it could compare with the _feeling_ —the way it makes him breathless or the way it wraps around his body and doesn’t let him go, as much as he thrashes or lashes out. It’s a big fucking word, and Ed doesn’t use it lightly; he doesn’t think he’s ever claimed to love anyone but his brother and his mother and maybe Winry and Pinako, but that’s all. Ed doesn’t love lightly, and he wouldn’t say he’s in love with anyone unless he was sure of it.

He’s trying to pretend he doesn’t care that Ling hasn’t responded.

Ed’s really trying, but the _feeling_ doesn’t do him any good, and _love_ doesn’t either. A few months ago, he decided to travel to this city in Drachma he hadn’t been into before called Vallad—books explained that it’d been a mighty city, once, but that it was no more because of several wards. Now it is but a wasteland, a forgotten city in a forgotten world; the chickenpox outbreak didn’t help the matter. But it’s where Ed wrote the letter from, and the inn where he’s staying is the address he put on Ling’s letter, so he hasn’t moved.

In case Ling writes back and the letter is sent here. It’s been a month, and Ed hasn’t moved from here since. He’s spending almost all of his money in this godforsaken inn, just because he’s still not over an _emperor_ , of all things.

Who can blame Ling, though?

Ed didn’t even realize that what he felt towards the Xingese warrior wasn’t just admiration until much, _much_ later. He smiles to himself now as he opens one of the drawers beside the bed and draws a cigarette from it, because he remembers the exact moment in which he realized that he was feeling a different feeling.

It was four years ago, and he was in Pinako’s house with Alphonse—Pinako and Winry had gone to buy groceries or something—and they were both sitting in the porch, Ed smoking and Al rolling his eyes every time Ed blew smoke in his direction, and they were reminiscing about the old days. It’d been a year since the Promised Day; Alphonse was twitchy, and Ed was pretending the _feeling_ wasn’t engulfing him whole.

Alphonse said, ‘I thought we were certainly going to die.’

It amused Ed, the facility with which he said things about the war. But he’d just started dating Winry, so Ed supposed Alphonse was happy in a way Ed hadn’t felt in a long time. ‘But we didn’t,’ he answered, inhaling hard. ‘I had faith in us. I was more worried about Ling, though, with the whole _Greed_ thing and all.’

‘You were always more worried about Ling than yourself,’ Alphonse muses, smiling. ‘You could’ve been dying and you’d still ask for Ling.’

‘I mean,’ Ed said, ignoring the _feeling_ squeezing his throat. ‘He was pretty cool, right? And he was good to us, helped us a lot. Remember when he caught Gluttony all by himself? That was really cool.’

Alphonse laughed and pressed his shoulder to Ed’s. ‘We helped him a lot too,’ he said. ‘You were as cool as he was, I reckon. I think you had him up in a pedestal’

 _Whatever_ , Ed remembers thinking. And then: _oh_.

Oh.

He still feels like that, four years later: oh. He lights up the cigarette and inhales for as long as his lungs let him, then holds it in until he starts coughing. There’s someone talking outside his room, loud and cheerful and without a care in the world, and Ed wishes he could be a person like that: free. Without the _feeling_ reminding him who he is at every turn he makes.

Because Ed’s found out that it doesn’t matter how fast he runs or how well he hides: the _feeling_ never fails at making him miserable.

Roy and Riza called it PTSD. Ed calls it something much, much worse.

His letter to Ling said:

> ling
> 
> i reckon im not feelin vry well right now but i— i miss you terribly. its been five years and i cannot help but. but wonder. are you ok? you haven’t written or called or otherwise and hell, i don’t even know if. if youre alive.
> 
> do you feel it too? this dread, always always. it doesn’t go away, and i dont know how to make it stop. i think about you, sometimes and think. you went through the sme as me. we were even together inside gluttony’s stomach! together. i miss us being like that—not eating my shoe, but. i dont know.
> 
> i write to you ~~sometims~~ a lot. fuck. i font even write to my brother, yet i write to yu. fuck fucki feel terrible. do you have this feeling, then? it makes my s tomach burn, my throat tighten and i can’t even fucking breathe. alphonse isnt like this, and neither is anyone i know. you have too feel it too. i fear i might be gong crazy sometimes.
> 
> ling. fuck ling. tell me you do too.
> 
> ed

*

Sometimes Ed thinks that he’s grieving, but what exactly he’s not sure.

He thinks about the war more often than not, but he doesn’t always wish he were back in it—there are times in which Ed wishes he could be one of the _others_. The side characters, the people that watched but never suffered, the oblivious and the guileless. The people that watched it all happen but did not participate.

Because houses can be rebuilt, and beds can be remade, and nightmares wear off; they didn’t lose limbs, or friends, or family. They didn’t mourn a lost cause, and they don’t grieve like Ed does. He knows he’s not the only person in pain in the world, but he travels and he sees people going on about their lives, enjoying whatever they have, and it occurs to him that maybe he’s the only person not over it.

He’s been around the world, over and over; he’s seen things most people don’t, and he’s spoken languages thought to be extinct. Ed’s slept in a thousand beds, yet all of them were empty and cold. He’s twenty, but the weight behind his back feels like a hundred years have passed, maybe more. He’s tired; he’s old in his bones.

And the _feeling_ won’t fucking _go_. It squeezes his windpipe with its invisible hands, and it curls around his hands and fingers with a death grip, and it chokes him until all that’s left of Ed are ashes.

He can’t say that it hasn’t occurred to him—leaving. Not to another city or town or country, but leaving altogether. Leaving everything and everyone behind, leaving _forever_. Sometimes all Ed wants is for it to stop, and he’s tried everything but one thing.

But he can’t do that. It’s been done by others to him, and Ed thinks of Winry and Alphonse and Roy and Riza and yes, _Ling_ , and he knows he can’t do that to them. So he starves until the very last second, the stops drinking liquids until his body almost withers, he stays in bed until his extremities hurt so much it brings tears to his eyes, but he never gets to the finish line.

There was this conversation he had once with Riza, when he was seventeen. She’d just given birth to her first baby, and Ed had come to visit; Roy was with the little boy in the kitchen, cooing and laughing, and Ed and Riza were alone in her room.

They didn’t talk about much. But when Ed was about to stand up to leave, Riza took his hand. She said, ‘Don’t keep everything to yourself, Ed. You’re too young to be this sad.’

It had come suddenly—Ed hadn’t even mentioned anything about the _feeling_ , about this dread that was consuming him little by little. Riza was only guessing, but from the look on Ed’s face, she’d guessed right. Ed sat again; Roy was murmuring sweet words to the baby outside the room. Riza said, ‘It’s not going to be like this forever.’ She pressed the tips of her fingers to his cheek, cold against warm against cold. ‘You’ll be okay.’

And he’d almost told her—if Roy hadn’t entered the room in that exact moment, Ed would’ve told her everything: that he didn’t know what his purpose was anymore, that he’d never felt so lost as he did back then—as he does now—that he sometimes wished he’d died, that day; in the war.

But he didn’t. He kept his mouth shut, and went away.

Now he watches as the sun sets at the other side of the window, squinting at the light until all he sees when he blinks are big, black spots swim around the room. Every day has become the same; he hardly leaves the inn’s room, and hardly any people bother him. Riza told him that he’d be okay.

But he’s still waiting.

And enough is enough.

With a moan, Ed sits up. He cracks his spine two times, then looks at the room around him; there are clothes piled up on the floor, wrappers of food thrown messily over the bed and furniture, headbands and hair ties all around the room. He’s been enclosed in here for two and a half months, wallowing in his own misery and waiting for a letter that’s never going to come.

Ed thinks that maybe it’s time he moved on. He thinks about that day with Riza and the days and months and _years_ before; crying himself to sleep in his old house in Amestris; trying to put on an invisible mask so no one would worry about him; pretending so hard the _feeling_ wasn’t there, even when it took his breath away. Ignoring the way he felt about Ling only because it was inconvenient.

Maybe it’s time he told someone. It’s been five years since the war; maybe it’s time to put an end to it once and for all.

He, too, deserves his happy ending—yes, he’ll never get the scars out of his body and he’ll never recover his leg and the people he lost are never going to be brought back to life, but he’s only _twenty_. He’s got his whole fucking life ahead of him; he has to do something with it.

And, honestly, _fuck_ the _feeling_. Ed feels it now tangling inside his body, demanding attention, but—maybe Riza was right, and all Ed has to do is share it with somebody else. Maybe that’s what he’s been doing wrong all these years: he’d hid everything, the good and the bad. All Ed has to do is let go.

He reaches out to the bedside table, not to pick up another cigarette but to pick up the phone. He dials a number, and after two rings he hears Alphonse say, ‘You know it’s late here. You know that, right? I was sleeping, you—’

‘I’m coming,’ Ed says, almost in a rush. His blood is flowing all throughout his body faster than it ever has, thrumming inside his veins. ‘I’m coming to Resembool. I have to talk with you about something.’

Alphonse hesitates before he says, ‘Are you okay, Ed?’

Like a revelation from above the skies, a prayer for which he had no name before now, Ed almost screams: ‘ _No_. I’m _not_. Gods, I haven’t been okay in the longest time.’

‘Ed?’

‘But I’ll be,’ he continues, remembering Riza in her bed, Roy cooing at the baby. ‘I think I’ll be okay soon.’

There’s a knock on the door. Normally Ed calls the inn’s staff at this time to ask for his dinner to be brought to his room, but today he hasn’t had time to do that; but he’s been staying here for two and a half months. If someone knows his eating habits, that’s the inn’s staff.

‘You aren’t going to do anything stupid, right? Alphonse asks, a tinge of worry in his voice. Ed supposes he’d get like that too, if his brother called him in the middle of the night to tell him he’s not okay. But even though he isn’t, Ed feels a little better just by admitting it. ‘You’d tell me if you were, would you?’

Ed’s first thought is: obviously. But he thinks of the last few years; his reckless travels and the way he treated his body—the _feeling_. He’s been doing plenty of stupid things, and he hasn’t told anybody, not even Alphonse. ‘Probably not,’ he says finally. ‘But it’s okay. I’m going to be fine, I promise. Tomorrow I’m going back to you.’

Another knock. Ed bites his lip. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow before I leave the inn,’ he says. ‘Now I’ve gotta go. But I’ll call tomorrow.’

‘All right,’ Alphonse says, then silence. But Alphonse is his brother, and Ed knows him enough to know that there is something else he wants to say, so he waits. Finally, Alphonse says, ‘I love you.’

Ed’s heart swells with emotion. He says back, ‘Love you too.’

He hangs up before Alphonse can say anything else, and stares at the ceiling. There are red stains, but for the first time in what feels like forever Ed sees only _red stains_ , not blood. He watches a little scar that runs up his forefinger, and he doesn’t feel like his heart is being squeezed by someone. He just sees a scar. He sighs, closes his eyes— _smiles_.

For a second, he feels almost invincible. Then there’s another knock on the door.

He’s expecting the red-haired man that always brings him his food. What Ed isn’t expecting, though, is the Emperor of Xing, Ling Yao, his hand raised and knuckles ready to knock again.

Ed looks at him, not really seeing, as his brain processes the image; it’s definitely not his imagination.

Ling opens his mouth, says, ‘I do.’

Ed closes the door. He hears Ling yelping, then cursing in Xingese, then the blood in his ears roaring. ‘What,’ he mutters to himself, ‘the _fuck_. What the _fuck_.’

‘Ed,’ Ling says from the other side of the door. ‘I still haven’t forgotten what you look like.’ There’s amusement in his voice, merriment. ‘Open the door.’

Gods _fuck_. Ed closes his eyes and pinches his skin as hard as he can with his fingers, but he still hears Ling talking, his voice echoing inside Ed’s ears. It’d been so long since he heard it for the last time, he didn’t remember what it sounded like. But now that he’s heard it, it’s all he can think about, because it’s the same voice he hears in his dreams, late at night, when everybody else is asleep.

What is he doing here? Ed tries to think of different scenarios that’d bring the emperor of a country to this godforsaken town, but he comes up empty handed. It literally makes no sense at all.

And yet he couldn’t be happier. He feels his heart beating inside his chest a mile a minute, and… it’s only that. There’s no unwanted _feeling_ around. It’s just happiness.

Carefully, Ed opens the door again. Ling is still at the other side, smiling smugly and kindly at the same time, all sharp edges. His hair is still black, still long, still covering one of his eyes. He’s got a sheathed sword behind his back, and there are bandages around his torso, though not blood anywhere to be seen. His clothes are yellow. It’s almost like five and a half years ago, when they met.

‘Hello,’ Ling says. Ed can’t bring himself to answer; he opens his mouth, but no words come out of it. Ling reaches into a pocket in his white pants; takes out a light brown envelope Ed remembers all too well. ‘I received your letter.’

‘You didn’t answer,’ Ed says, a little uncertain. All the adrenaline he felt before has evaporated. ‘I sent it a month ago, and you never answered.’

‘No,’ Ling agrees. ‘But I came here, which I think is better than an answer, don’t you think?’

‘I— _Ling_.’

At his voice—wavering, broken—Ling smirks. But then his smile vanishes, and his brows furrow. He nods at the room. ‘Can I come in?’

How could Ed say no? He’s come all the way from Xing, just because of a letter Ed sent when he had a fever and wasn’t thinking straight. He watches Ling’s every movement—the way he lightly limps, how he pushes the hair away from his face only for it to fall back, the hard lines of his face. Ling looks around the inn’s room, the mess that it is, but doesn’t seem to give it a second thought.

He’s been the Emperor of Xing for five years. He’s changed, but at the same time he’s exactly as he was when they parted ways: a little bit broken, a little bit older. For a second, Ed considers hugging him. He doesn’t.

‘I wasn’t excepting a letter from you,’ Ling says then, sitting on the bed cross-legged. ‘It’s been a long time, isn’t it?’

Ed nods. There’s the _feeling_ again, tying nots in his throat, making it hard to get any air into his lungs. He holds on to a chair near the door, never stops looking at Ling.

‘I missed you too,’ Ling adds, smiling again but looking at the floor. ‘Gods, I did.’

What would it be like? To take two steps, tilt Ling’s head upwards, kiss him on the mouth? To open up his lips with his tongue, to taste what he’s always desired. Ed lets himself wonder for a minute, holds on tighter to the chair. He’s only ever kissed one person—Winry, when they were fourteen and curious—and he can’t help but imagine a thousand different scenarios in which the conclusion to them all is a kiss.

Ling wipes at his eyes then, catching Ed’s attention. ‘Ed—’

‘I was sick,’ he says, out of the blue, ‘when I wrote that letter. There was a chickenpox outbreak, and I caught it, and I got sick. I write a lot, in this diary I’ve got, and I never send any of it, but it’s all for you.’ It’s like he’s in autopilot: he can’t stop talking, and he’s not sure that he’d want to. ‘I miss a lot of people, but you the most. I don’t think you know how bad—’

‘Ed—’

‘It’s eating me away, this _feeling_ ,’ he says finally. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud; the first time he’s confessed to it. And as he does, he feels the knot at his throat less and less tight. ‘Sometimes I wish we were still at war. Sometimes I wish it’d killed me.’

 _You’re too young to be this sad_. For the longest time, Ed has kept everything to himself, his mouth shut, his emotions inside his body where no one could peak. He’s spent months and even years standing still, watching in silence as the _feeling_ ate him away. He should have told Riza, he realizes now, pacing his room and with tears in the corner of his eyes. He should have told anyone willing to listen.

He prided himself in being smart, years back. How could he be so foolish, then? Ed watches Ling, hands pressed against his knees and listening to him speak. Alphonse would have done this. Riza, Roy, Winry—anyone would have done this for him. He’s thought before, that the only thing he hasn’t tried to get rid of the _feeling_ was to die, but that’s not true.

 _Don’t keep everything to yourself_. That’s exactly what Ed has done for the past five years. He’s assumed Alphonse doesn’t feel it to, that no one does. But what if they do? What if they do, and they are doing the same as Ed—hiding it under the rug.

‘I’ve been stupid.’ He shakes his head; fetches a hair tie from the floor and braids his hair quickly. ‘I should’ve told _someone_.’

Ling takes Ed’s hands in his—Ed hadn’t even realized that he’d gotten up from the bed, so close to him. He’s smiling in a way Ed hasn’t seen him smile before, tender but at the same time emotional and serious.

‘I didn’t tell anyone, for the longest time,’ Ling says, picking up the end of Ed’s braid between his middle and forefinger and pulling lightly at it. ‘It was my most well-kept secret. I was dying from the inside, and yet I kept it to myself.’ 

_tell me you do too_ , that’s what Ed asked in the letter. _I do_ , Ling said as soon as Ed opened the door. Ling didn’t write back; he _brought the answer_ to Ed instead.

Ed feels his heart too big inside his chest; like he’s going to fucking _explode_ , but in a good way—a really good way. Ling says, ‘I couldn’t sleep at night. When I closed my eyes I had nightmares, so I didn’t close them at all. There was this one time,’ he muses, pulling a strand of Ed’s hair behind his ear, ‘where I fell asleep in the middle of a meeting. Lan Fan almost killed me afterwards.’

Ed giggles— _giggles_ —and touches Ling’s face with the tip of his fingers. Ling continues, ‘I isolated myself; I thought I deserved it. I didn’t know what my reason to be here was anymore. I dreaded waking up in the morning, and I dreaded going to sleep at night. The world _terrified_ me.’

 _Yes_ , Ed thinks, _yes_. ‘What did you do, then?’

Ling grins, then—a full on smile, so bright it lights up the whole room, the whole inn. Ed wants to put Ling inside a jar and keep him forever. ‘I spoke with Lan Fan, with my advisors, and with Mei. A week after that, I quit. I’m not the emperor anymore.’

Ed opens his eyes so wide that for a moment he fears they might burst out of their sockets. ‘What—you— _how_?’

‘I couldn’t do it anymore.’ Ling shrugs, like it’s nothing. ‘Mei’s the empress now, and she’s doing a far better job that I ever did. It wasn’t only the war that was making me feel to terrible,’ he says, taking a step closer to Ed. ‘It was also the power I had. It was slowly killing me.’

It makes sense. Ed doesn’t know the how or the why, but he doesn’t really care about those. It makes sense, and that’s all that matters. Ling found his peace stepping down from his position, and Ed will find his own speaking up, letting go.

 _Enough_ , he thinks again. Enough of feeling like the worst human on the planet; enough of self-isolation and self-deprecation. He wasn’t meant for this.

And maybe not today or tomorrow or the day after that, but Ed will be fine. He knows he will, one day. He just have to keep moving forward.

He grins, and Ling smiles in return. Ed grabs the other man’s hand in between his, calloused but warm, scarred but familiar. It occurs to him, he could spend the rest of his life like this: a breath apart from Ling, close enough to touch but not touching, feeling Ling’s breath hot on his face, almost tasting his lips.

A thought comes to him, and once inside his head, Ed can’t let go. So standing on his tiptoes, because even if he’s grown taller, Ling is taller than him, Ed leans on and Ling meets him in the middle, pressing his lips with Ed’s.

Ling’s lips tastes like vanilla and caramel and something foreign. Ed smiles into the kiss, and he cups Ling’s face with his hands. This is all he ever wanted, and more. He tips Ling’s head backwards like he’s dreamed of doing a thousand times, opens up Ling’s lips with his tongue, tastes him whole. Someone knocks on the door—the red-haired man with his dinner, probably—but Ed ignores it.

‘Tell me,’ Ling whispers after a moment, sitting on the bed and dragging Ed closer. ‘Tell me you love me too.’

It’s been _five years_. Five years of feeling lesser, of feeling undeserving of the world; five years of loneliness and pain and a feeling. He’d never thought he’d be happy again. Five years, and yet here he still is. Five years, and he’s still _alive_.

Ed presses his fingers against Ling’s mouth, presses their foreheads together. ‘I never stopped.’

**Author's Note:**

> I hoped you liked it!!! You can tell me what you throught in the comments, or tell me in twitter @/judetwine ! My dms are open if you wanna scream :)


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